Given finals and the short December month at Coastal, there are fewer additions than normal, but we’ve nevertheless got some excellent ones worth highlighting.

1) Typography for Lawyers: Essential Tools for Polished & Persuasive Documents.For some of us, the title is enough to sell this one. For most of you, it is more likely to cause your eyes to glaze over. Trust me when I say this one is worth a look. A slim softcover volume of only 170 pages (plus sample documents and an appendix), Typography for Lawyers addresses some of the most common issues faced by those attempting to craft great legal documents. All sorts of questions on formatting and usage are discussed and simple, straight-forward answers are provided whenever possible. Although it was originally tabbed to be sent into the General Collection, after review by library staff and students, it has been deemed of sufficient importance to be moved into the Reference Collection so it will always be on hand.

If all that wasn’t enough to convince you it is worth a look, take note of the fact that Bryan Garner has lent his name to the effort and written the foreword. You may know that name, but if not try typing it into our library catalog. You may recognize some of the results, like Garner’s Dictionary of Legal Usage, Reading Law: the Interpretation of Legal Texts (with Scalia), Classic Essays on Legal Advocacy, and a little book called Black’s Law Dictionary.

2) Phake: the Deadly World of Falsified and Substandard Medicines
The library’s own Jamie Marie Keller has actually read this book already, and was kind enough to provide us with this review:Phake by Roger Bate (Economist with the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research) discusses the dangers of unregulated consumer medical drug markets. The book includes empirical studies of the safety of drug quality in Africa, India, China, and the Middle East. While the book focuses on counterfeit drugs and substandard laboratories, it does not differentiate between drugs that are counterfeit simply because they are not created by the corporation that holds the patent on the medication and other counterfeit medicines. Bate praises the efforts of the FDA to regulate the drug market in the United States and encourages other countries to develop similar agencies.

3) Covenants Not to Compete: a State-by-State Survey
Current through the end of 2011, this state-by-state survey includes everything from Abandonment of Customers to Writing Requirement. The first volume of this three-volume set lists the most common questions and on which pages the answer for each state can be found. Each state section provides ample citations to primary sources as well as a cumulative history on each portion.

4) All the Missing Souls: a Personal History of the War Crimes Tribunals
For this review, we turn to Martin Wenick of American Diplomacy (via Amazon.com):All the Missing Souls clearly fills a gap in literature on the administration of international justice, and it is must reading for those interested in emerging themselves profoundly in this field. His direct personal involvement in working to create international tribunals to bring to justice individuals responsible for the worst of the ‘atrocity crimes’ of recent decades demonstrates that perseverance and tenacity can make a difference on the international scene.